TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 10806 SUBJECT: GRB 100526A: Gemini/NIRI infrared afterglow candidate DATE: 10/05/27 11:41:49 GMT FROM: Daniel Perley at U.C. Berkeley D. A. Perley (UC Berkeley) reports on behalf of a larger collaboration: We imaged the field of GRB 100526A (Vetere et al., GCN 10797) with the Near-InfraRed Imager (NIRI) on Gemini-North starting at 08:29 UT on 2010-05-27. We obtained 18 exposures of 60 seconds each in K-band and H-band. At the edge of the XRT error circle (Beardmore et al., GCN 10800) we clearly detect a source with no SDSS counterpart in the K-band image. It is also present, but much fainter, in H-band. The position (J2000) is: RA = 15:23:04.480 Dec = +25:37:55.23 (+/- 0.4") Preliminary photometry relative to a single 2MASS star in the field (2MASS 1523017+2538260) gives: K = 19.09 +/- 0.13 (t_mid = 16.21 hours) H = 21.15 +/- 0.17 (t_mid = 16.75 hours) This is an extremely red color, corresponding to a spectral slope of beta~5.5. If this object is confirmed as the afterglow (rather than a host or background galaxy), its flux and color are reminiscent of GRB 070306 (Jaunsen et al. 2008) at similar times. That object had a visual extinction of A_V~5.5 mag and is among the most heavily extinguished afterglows known. The large inferred XRT absorption column (Vetere et al., GCN 10804) of this event is also consistent with a highly dust-extinguished event at low to moderate redshift. We thank Richard McDermid and the Gemini staff for acquiring these observations.